I'm not a bleeding heart liberal; in fact, I'm rather conservative. But I also understand that human beings are imperfect and sometimes we lose sight of things we shouldn't. Such is the case of actress Felicity Huffman, Hollywood celebrity and parent of college-age children. She's also politically left-leaning and isn't a big fan of Donald Trump. She pretty much fits the description of a liberal activist, if a definition were ever to be printed in a dictionary. Sitting in my ivory tower, it would be easy for me to sling ha-ha-on-you mud at her with the best of them. But I won't, and here's why.
When the college-payoff scandal broke, she was among 50 people indicted. The other high-profile couple indicted with the group was actress Lori Loughlin and her husband. They have pleaded not guilty and are fighting the charges, something I deem a major mistake. Time will tell; as my mother used to say, The wheel of justice turns slow, but it grinds exceedingly fine.
Huffman, to her credit, never uttered a word of denial. She knew what she was doing was wrong and we can safely bet that if it wasn't an act to help her daughter, she wouldn't have done it. She came to the bar with clean hands almost immediately and pleaded guilty pretty much just as fast as she could. And she made no bones about it - she publicly admitted her guilt without making excuses for her behavior.
I'm a parent myself and I know plenty of other parents who have gone a little further than they should have in acts to protect or help their children. I'm not saying I would have paid somebody off to change their grades, but I damn well used every resource at my disposal to keep them on the right path. This includes using a friendship with a local police chief while I sat on the municipal board that oversaw him to locate a runaway stepson 3000 miles away a few decades ago. I'm sure he would have investigated it anyway regardless of my position, but personal conversations letting him know his mother was besides herself over it didn't hurt either.
Some people think Huffman got off too easy. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. Opinions vary. She was sentenced to 14 days in jail, a year of probation with 250 hours of community service and a fine of twice what she paid ($30,000). I'm not a judge and I don't know if the sentence matches the crime.
But I do know parents will go to far lengths to help their children, sometimes further than they should.
The biggest thing that motivates me to write about this is her complete and timely admission that what she did was, in fact, wrong. It demonstrates 2 things: One, she has a conscience and two, she knows she is not above John Q. Public in regards to the law.
So, Ms. Huffman, you are in jail as I write this. 14 days will probably turn out to be 10 or 11 days (I understand there are jail credits average people like me don't know about). You will have a year after that to perform your community service and report to probation as required, and that will be your real sentence. I'm reminded of a petty criminal who was our town supervisor 25 years ago and was caught using highway department employees to remodel his own house. He got community service also (besides being kicked out of office) and that was the biggest thing he hated. Friends told me he said he'd rather go to jail than have to go to the soup kitchen and hand out food. As a side bar, his crime was what motivated me to run for office and eventually serve 3 terms on the board, so I guess it wasn't all bad.
So, Ms. Huffman, while our politics are 180 degrees apart, I actually admire you for showing us how to be penitent when we screw up.
And we all have screwed up at one point or another. Somebody else said it better: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
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